Kanye West

( Lawrence Ho / Los Angeles Times )

A month or so after he infamously interrupted Taylor Swift at the MTV VMAs, the rapper was reported dead as part of an elaborate Internet hoax. The fake news report had West in a two-car accident in Los Angeles involving a red Ferrari and a white Porsche. West, the story went, was killed, a second person sustained injuries, a third was arrested for vehicular manslaughter and a fourth was detained by police.

Twitter and Facebook fueled the rumors, and hackers reportedly pushed the story to the top of the search engines. It was West's girlfriend, Amber Rose, who came to his rescue, tweeting, "This 'RIP Kanye West' topic is not funny and it's NOT TRUE!"